Writing as a Tool for Teaching Public Speaking: A Campus Application

All basic communication courses seek to improve students\u27 oral communication skills while also deepening their understanding of the theoretical principles and processes underlying effective communication. Writing, whether in the form of formal assignments or informal in-class activities, can help achieve these goals. This paper offers rationales and approaches for incorporating writing throughout basic courses, and illustrates how formal and informal strategies promote an oral/written relationship in these courses. Included are numerous examples of assignments for basic public speaking courses

An Examination of the Speech Evaluation Process: Does the Evaluation Instrument and/or Evaluator\u27s Experience Matter?

Speech evaluation forms are a useful and necessary tool of any communication course with a public speaking component. The continued investigation of how such forms are created and used is beneficial to students and teachers. In this study, raters from various experience levels graded two speeches using a combination of four evaluation forms, half of which included directions. Raters then responded to questions regarding the forms they just used. Results indicate that experience level and form type influence the speech grade given. Additionally, raters\u27 responses regarding the forms reveal how they view the use of forms in the speech evaluation process

Written Feedback in the Basic Course: What Instructors Provide and What Students Deem Helpful

Although the issue of speech evaluation has been a mainstay in our discipline, an updated discussion of written feedback merits our attention. To revisit this topic, this two-part content analysis first reveals the type of written feedback instructors offer students in basic public speaking classes. Building on these findings, the second part focuses on student perceptions of the helpfulness of the written feedback. The findings are collectively discussed and their implications for written evaluations of students\u27 oral performances are considered. Any instructor who has labored over written critiques, wondering whether students actually read and/or use the comments can value from this discussion

Teaching the Honors Public Speaking Course

The honors student comes to the public speaking class with a unique set of needs and learning preferences which require alterations to the traditional course. This article explores a variety of honors course formats, honors students’ characteristics and learning preferences, and some ideas for restructuring the typical public speaking course to best accommodate honors students. As such, this article can serve as an initial step toward creating a new honors course or restructuring an existing course. The suggested formats and content changes can create added challenge and participatory experience to improve honors education

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least 4 m. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the 6.5 m James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 yr, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit